The next day Olénin awoke earlier than usual, and immediately
remembered what lay before him, and he joyfully recalled her kisses,
the pressure of her hard hands, and her words, “What white hands you
have!” He jumped up and wished to go at once to his hosts’ hut to ask
for their consent to his marriage with Maryánka. The sun had not yet
risen, but it seemed that there was an unusual bustle in the street and
side-street: people were moving about on foot and on horseback, and
talking. He threw on his Circassian coat and hastened out into the
porch. His hosts were not yet up. Five Cossacks were riding past and
talking loudly together. In front rode Lukáshka on his broad-backed
Kabardá horse.
The Cossacks were all speaking and shouting so that it was impossible
to make out exactly what they were saying.
“Ride to the Upper Post,” shouted one.
“Saddle and catch us up, be quick,” said another.
“It’s nearer through the other gate!”
“What are you talking about?” cried Lukáshka. “We must go through the
middle gates, of course.”
“So we must, it’s nearer that way,” said one of the Cossacks who was
covered with dust and rode a perspiring horse. Lukáshka’s face was red
and swollen after the drinking of the previous night and his cap was
pushed to the back of his head. He was calling out with authority as
though he were an officer.
“What is the matter? Where are you going?” asked Olénin, with
difficulty attracting the Cossacks’ attention.
“We are off to catch _abreks_. They’re hiding among the sand-drifts. We
are just off, but there are not enough of us yet.”
And the Cossacks continued to shout, more and more of them joining as
they rode down the street. It occurred to Olénin that it would not look
well for him to stay behind; besides he thought he could soon come
back. He dressed, loaded his gun with bullets, jumped onto his horse
which Vanyúsha had saddled more or less well, and overtook the Cossacks
at the village gates. The Cossacks had dismounted, and filling a wooden
bowl with _chikhir_ from a little cask which they had brought with
them, they passed the bowl round to one another and drank to the
success of their expedition. Among them was a smartly dressed young
cornet, who happened to be in the village and who took command of the
group of nine Cossacks who had joined for the expedition. All these
Cossacks were privates, and although the cornet assumed the airs of a
commanding officer, they only obeyed Lukáshka. Of Olénin they took no
notice at all, and when they had all mounted and started, and Olénin
rode up to the cornet and began asking him what was taking place, the
cornet, who was usually quite friendly, treated him with marked
condescension. It was with great difficulty that Olénin managed to find
out from him what was happening. Scouts who had been sent out to search
for _abreks_ had come upon several hillsmen some six miles from the
village. These _abreks_ had taken shelter in pits and had fired at the
scouts, declaring they would not surrender. A corporal who had been
scouting with two Cossacks had remained to watch the _abreks_, and had
sent one Cossack back to get help.
The sun was just rising. Three miles beyond the village the steppe
spread out and nothing was visible except the dry, monotonous, sandy,
dismal plain covered with the footmarks of cattle, and here and there
with tufts of withered grass, with low reeds in the flats, and rare,
little-trodden footpaths, and the camps of the nomad Nogáy tribe just
visible far away. The absence of shade and the austere aspect of the
place were striking. The sun always rises and sets red in the steppe.
When it is windy whole hills of sand are carried by the wind from place
to place.
When it is calm, as it was that morning, the silence, uninterrupted by
any movement or sound, is peculiarly striking. That morning in the
steppe it was quiet and dull, though the sun had already risen. It all
seemed specially soft and desolate. The air was hushed, the footfalls
and the snorting of the horses were the only sounds to be heard, and
even they quickly died away.
The men rode almost silently. A Cossack always carries his weapons so
that they neither jingle nor rattle. Jingling weapons are a terrible
disgrace to a Cossack. Two other Cossacks from the village caught the
party up and exchanged a few words. Lukáshka’s horse either stumbled or
caught its foot in some grass, and became restive—which is a sign of
bad luck among the Cossacks, and at such a time was of special
importance. The others exchanged glances and turned away, trying not to
notice what had happened. Lukaskha pulled at the reins, frowned
sternly, set his teeth, and flourished his whip above his head. His
good Kabardá horse, prancing from one foot to another not knowing with
which to start, seemed to wish to fly upwards on wings. But Lukáshka
hit its well-fed sides with his whip once, then again, and a third
time, and the horse, showing its teeth and spreading out its tail,
snorted and reared and stepped on its hind legs a few paces away from
the others.
“Ah, a good steed that!” said the cornet.
That he said _steed_ instead of _horse_ indicated special praise.
“A lion of a horse,” assented one of the others, an old Cossack.
The Cossacks rode forward silently, now at a footpace, then at a trot,
and these changes were the only incidents that interrupted for a moment
the stillness and solemnity of their movements.
Riding through the steppe for about six miles, they passed nothing but
one Nogáy tent, placed on a cart and moving slowly along at a distance
of about a mile from them. A Nogáy family was moving from one part of
the steppe to another. Afterwards they met two tattered Nogáy women
with high cheekbones, who with baskets on their backs were gathering
dung left by the cattle that wandered over the steppe. The cornet, who
did not know their language well, tried to question them, but they did
not understand him and, obviously frightened, looked at one another.
Lukáshka rode up to them both, stopped his horse, and promptly uttered
the usual greeting. The Nogáy women were evidently relieved, and began
speaking to him quite freely as to a brother.
“_Ay-ay, kop abrek!_” they said plaintively, pointing in the direction
in which the Cossacks were going. Olénin understood that they were
saying, “Many _abreks_.”
Never having seen an engagement of that kind, and having formed an idea
of them only from Daddy Eróshka’s tales, Olénin wished not to be left
behind by the Cossacks, but wanted to see it all. He admired the
Cossacks, and was on the watch, looking and listening and making his
own observations. Though he had brought his sword and a loaded gun with
him, when he noticed that the Cossacks avoided him he decided to take
no part in the action, as in his opinion his courage had already been
sufficiently proved when he was with his detachment, and also because
he was very happy.
Suddenly a shot was heard in the distance.
The cornet became excited, and began giving orders to the Cossacks as
to how they should divide and from which side they should approach. But
the Cossacks did not appear to pay any attention to these orders,
listening only to what Lukáshka said and looking to him alone.
Lukáshka’s face and figure were expressive of calm solemnity. He put
his horse to a trot with which the others were unable to keep pace, and
screwing up his eyes kept looking ahead.
“There’s a man on horseback,” he said, reining in his horse and keeping
in line with the others.
Olénin looked intently, but could not see anything. The Cossacks soon
distinguished two riders and quietly rode straight towards them.
“Are those the _abreks?_” asked Olénin.
The Cossacks did not answer his question, which appeared quite
meaningless to them. The _abreks_ would have been fools to venture
across the river on horseback.
“That’s friend Ródka waving to us, I do believe,” said Lukáshka,
pointing to the two mounted men who were now clearly visible. “Look,
he’s coming to us.”
A few minutes later it became plain that the two horsemen were the
Cossack scouts. The corporal rode up to Lukáshka.